Bio-efficacy of insecticidal spray schedule for sucking pest of chilli

Introduction

Portuguese introduced chilli to India. India which is considered "the home of spices" produces chillies practically every season because of the suitable climate conditions, soil properties, irrigation facilities and intensive practices followed by farmers and now produces 40 percent of total chilli production in the world and is the world leader in green chilli production with an area of 418 lakh , annual production of 45.05 million tonnes and an average productivity of 11 mt ha -1 in the years 2021-2022, followed by China and Pakistan (Anonymous 2022) [1] . In Maharashtra, it is cultivated over an area of 99.50 ha with production of 45.60 tonnes and productivity 0.46 tonnes (Anonymous, 2022) [1] . According to The Hindu 2020-2021 report, total chilli exports in 2020-21 were 6,01,500 tonnes valued at ₹8,430 crore, up 21 percent in quantity and 26 percent in value. Last year, it was 2, 64,500 tonnes worth ₹3,605 crore. Majorly chilli producing states in India are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Among the many constraints to low productivity the insect being the prime production constraints can cause the yield loss ranging from 50-90 percent (Nelson and Natrajan, 1994) [13] . Insect pest infestation causes the significant damage to the crop and its holds the major share for low quality and productivity of chilli. The crop is attacked by 55 species of insect pests (Jadhav et al., 2004) [6] . The major pests attacking chilli crop are thrips (Scirtothrips dorsalis Hood), whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci Gennadius), aphids (Aphis gossypii Glover), jassids (Amrasca bigutulla bigutulla) Ishida, tobacco leaf eating caterpillar (Spodoptera litura Fabricius), fruit borer (Helicoverpa armigera Hubner) and mites (Polyphagotarsonemus latus Banks) (Sorensen, 2005) [15] . These pests attack chilli crop from the time of transplanting till the final harvest of the crop. These chemicals need to be used wisely in the management of key pest like chilli thrips with a due consideration of cost economics and environmental damage by new group of insecticides reported in the recent past. Insecticides application can substantially reduce yield losses caused by pests.

Pest resistance to pesticides is an increasing problem because pesticides are an integral part of high-yielding crop production in agriculture. Therefore present study is aimed to find most effective spray schedule to manage the sucking pest of the chilli.

Materials and Methods

The field experiments was conducted at Research Farm, and laboratory of Division of Agriculture Entomology, College of Agriculture, Latur (MS), India during Kharif 2022 in Randomized Block Design with seven treatments. The observations on sucking pests was recorded regularly in the treated as well as in control plot throughout the period of investigation in all experiments just before first spraying (Pre) and 1, 3, 5, 7 and 14 days after spraying (DAS).

Observations were recorded to assess sucking pest population from five leaves, one from top and two each from middle and bottom of randomly selected five plants from each net plot for mites, whitefly and aphids whereas from five terminal leaves for thrips (Pathipati et al. 2012) [14] . Different schedules and treatments were also assessed for their safety to the naturally occurring bio-agents.

Observations were recorded on the population of Chrysopa and ladybird beetle. Population of these predators was recorded on randomly selected ten plants from each net plot on weekly interval during both the years. These observations were analysed.

Results

The results obtained in the present investigations on bioefficacy of insecticides against major pests of chilli based upon pooled data from [10] examined spinosad application resulted in maximum reduction of 91 percent followed byacephate (72%), dimethoate (69%), imidacloprid (61%), fipronil (61%), diafenthiuron (60%), clothianidin (55%) and thiamethoxam (55%) application. Further, spinosad treatment continued to record significant decline in thrips population up to 10 days. Chavan et al. ( 2017) investigated nine insecticidal treatments against thrips, aphids, whiteflys, cutworms and fruit borers. Among all the treatments, Fipronil 200 percent SC 250 mL/ha, was found to be the best treatment a.i/ha were found most effective against different pest compelex of chilli. Mahendra and Singh. (2022) [7] results indicated that the imidacloprid 17.8 SL (0.22 ml/lit.) and Acetamiprid 20 SP (0.20 ml/lit.) were found to be more effective for the control of whitefly on tomato.

The present findings are more or less also parallel to Mandal (2012) [8] who found that cyantraniliprole 10% OD @ 90 and 105 g a.i./ha was highly effective in controlling the aphid, A. gossypii and white fly, B. tabaci of tomato. Nderitu et al, (2007) [12] showed that Tracer 48 SC and Regent 5 SC sprayed plots had the lowest thrips numbers across all varieties. Karthik et al. (2017) [5] determined that cyantraniliprole 10% OD at 90 g a.i./ha was significantly effective when sprayed twice at 15 days interval in 152 minimizing the sucking pests population and increased cotton yield. Govindappa et al. (2013) [4] reported that among the test chemicals, cyantraniliprole 10 OD at 60 and 75 g a.i./ha had knockdown effect and caused 100 percent mortality of thrips at 48 hrs after treatments and also recorded least virus transmission (10 and 5%) respectively.

Conclusion

The present study indicated the significance of all the insecticides spray schedule as they were found to be significantly superior in recording minimum number of aphid, whitefly, mite over untreated control. The results indicated that among different treatment schedule of insecticides consisting spraying of fipronil 0.5 SC + tolfenpyrad 15 EC + cyantraniliprole 10.50 OD was found most effective sprays schedules was at par with lambdacyhalothrin 5 SC + diafenthiuron 50 WP + emamectin benzoate 0.5 SG and followed by spinosad 45 SC + broflanilide 300 G/L SC + flubendamide 20 WG.

References

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